Book recommendation:

Engine Summer (S.F. MASTERWORKS)

Engine Summer presents a world changed by the inevitable death/decline of most of society as we understand it. But it's a different kind of post-apoclypse - not the grimness of Mad Max but more like an American frontier adventure novel. In portraying this altered world, language and customs have changed. These changes make it hard to get into initially - a foreign environment - but it's well worth the extra effort.